As a society, we have a legitimate and vested interest in the workings of the criminal mind. Not just from a psychological standpoint, but from a sociological and anthropological one as well. Murder is humanity's oldest sport/crime/culture and it really is both fascinating and beneficial to investigate the predatory impulses of an individual mind against the backdrop of a society that believes itself to be more advanced than them. I get the interest. Hell, I
have that interest.
But the flip side of that, and I think the more disturbing side, really, are the people who romanticize murderers. And that's not a new thing by any means. People sent love letters to Richard Ramirez and George Rader. Celebrity serial killers have always inspired a weird celebrity following. Dare I say, a
cult following.
But mostly, we as a society tried to distance ourselves from those stupid bitches (male and female), because they were clearly not all there in the head.
What I find disturbing is this new trend of blithely accepting and vindicating those people.
I mean, hell, maybe it is our fault. We made a vigilante dreamboat out of Dexter, a cultured and sophisticated intellectual out of Hannibal Lector and we got the hot angel from Supernatural to play real-life rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo. We fetishize killers in fiction, but vilify them - rightfully so - in real life.
So, I guess it goes back to people on tumblr not being able to distinguish fictional violence from real violence. Which, I guess, also goes back to people on tumblr caring more about tv victims than actual human beings.
http://fyeahserialkillers.tumblr.com/
This person, for example, seems to run a pretty dispassionate blog. All the facts, very little personal input. Barring the rather tasteless blog name and the icon photo of Elizabeth Short's autopsy photo, it just seems like a fairly innocuous encyclopedia blog of serial killers.
http://truecrime-dahmer.tumblr.com/
THIS person, on the other hand, clearly has a very unhealthy obsession with serial killers. As evidenced by the "inspirational quote" style of the blog format and the clear sympathetic light they seem to be putting the Columbine shooters in. And fine, people are nuanced, the Columbine boys weren't one-dimensional evil and may have benefitted greatly from some serious therapy. Fine. And Jeffrey Dahmer's upbringing was nothing short of absolutely heartbreaking. Fine.
But they were still killers and what they did was still monstrous.
But the difference I think tumblr is having a hard time with is the difference between empathizing and fetishizing.
I kinda got long-winded here, and I apologize.